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Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Preaching on Hell—Then and Now

I am reading a book entitled A
Time to Laugh…Grandpa Was a Preacher by Leroy Brownlow. Here is a short take from it:

"At a preachers' conference that
was held to discuss the merits of preaching on hell, the chairman pointed him
out and asked, 'Do you preach on hell very often?'

'No, not often.'

'Why not?' inquired the
chairman. 'Is it because you feel that
you are not effective on this topic?'

'No, because it disrupts the
service.'

'How's that?' continued the chairman.

'It's like this,' explained grandpa,
'the audience becomes so fatigued fanning that I have to declare a recess about
every five minutes.'" (Page 23)

Funny, yes, but while funny there is
truth here about the preaching of days gone by versus today. Growing up in the 50's thru the early to mid
60's I often heard sermons that would figuratively speaking curl your toes and
send chills up your spine. In those days
hell was real and man was in present danger of ending up there without faith, gospel
obedience, and the living thereafter of a faithful Christian life.

Today it seems no one is afraid of
God and everyone seems to believe that in the end (judgement day) no one is going to hell
despite their disregard for spiritual things in this life. The idea is just so you are a decent guy, the
way society today would define what makes a guy a decent guy, then all is well
and you will be okay in the end. No need
to worry about reading your Bible, obeying all those commands, attending
worship services, etc. Why even
non-Christians may get to heaven seems to be the thinking of the day.

Many despise all that old time fear
mongering preaching but one wonders whether or not we are better off today
without it than we would have been had we kept it up? After all, those preachers of days gone by
did preach on other subjects as well but they made it clear there were things
you had to do to be saved and you left those services not doubting for a minute
but what they were right. If a tornado
(think hell) is headed directly for you don't you think you might be better off
if the weatherman (think preacher) warned you versus giving you soothing words
of peace and all is well?

Good Bible Study Sites

YouTube

I have gotten a lot of good out of listening to lectures by the following Christian apologists on YouTube. Like C. S. Lewis they deal little with doctrine, almost exclusively with apologetics. I am sure I would not agree with them on some issues of doctrine, in fact I know I don't, but they do a great job on apologetics.

Ravi ZachariasGary HabermasJohn LennoxMichael Ramsden

I could mention others I listen to but these men provide a good starting point. Just do a search on their names in YouTube's search engine to find their lectures.